Landver rejects call to take aliya control from JAFI

Ministry director-general: Jewish Agency should "return keys" of aliya, role of Nefesh B’Nefesh should be diminished.

Nefesh b'Nefesh July 2012.
(photo credit:Courtesy of Nefesh b'Nefesh)

Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver repudiated comments made by her
ministry’s director-general on Wednesday after he publicly called for a
significant diminution of the powers of the Jewish Agency.

The agency
should no longer bear responsibility for Jewish immigration from the Diaspora,
Immigrant Absorption Ministry director-general Dmitry Aparzev told the Hebrew
language daily Ma’ariv in an article published on Wednesday.

Aparzev is
now in his second term as director-general of the ministry.

“I give the
[Jewish Agency] the mandate to take care of a national issue – aliya – and
instead it decides to invest in a different area,” Aparzev said in the
interview, referring to the agency’s shift away from its traditional focus on
facilitating large-scale immigration in favor of programs to maintain Jewish
identity among Jews living outside of Israel.

Aparzev called upon the
Jewish Agency to “return the keys” of aliya to his ministry, alleging that the
quasi-governmental organization has fallen down on the job of “encouraging
aliya.”

In response to a query from the Post, Elad Son, the spokesman for
Landver, said via email that the minister “strongly supports organizations who
encourage aliya and is happy for each one that is founded. The minister prefers
as [many] organizations as possible for the important mission of aliya, and for
that reason the ministry will continue supporting them. Nefesh B’Nefesh is one
of those organizations and Minister Landver thinks highly of its
work.”

Landver’s spokesman also said that she “believes that JAFI has an
important historic role in the shaping of aliya and absorption process and that
there are still great challenges that JAFI and the ministry are facing. Minister
Landver looks forward working together with JAFI’s chairman, Natan Sharansky, on
those mutual goals.”

A representative of The Jewish Agency told The
Jerusalem Post last year that the age of mass aliya is over, and that the
agency’s emphasis is now shifting from bringing individual Jews to Israel to
bringing Israel to entire communities, providing them with a Jewish and Zionist
connection.

Now that the majority of Jews in Russia, Ethiopia and the
Arab world have come to Israel, the representative said, aliya has dropped
off.

Aparzev said that while he does not have a problem with the agency’s
“Jewish identity” strategy, he believes that “the issue of aliya must receive a
more central place.”

The Jewish Agency says “that their strategic plan
puts a large emphasis in the area of Jewish identity. But encouraging aliya is
secondary and not central,” he said.

“It does not matter that there are
groups of Jews in the Diaspora who think this harms them.”

Aparzev said
he found it unacceptable that the Jewish Agency has focused on creating
communities for Israelis living abroad without coordinating with the state and
said that his office is the “office that has the mandate” for dealing with such
matters.

“They have not coordinated with us and this outrages me,”
Aparzev complained.

Aparzev also lashed out at Nefesh B’Nefesh, the
private organization that has taken over promotion and facilitation of aliya
from North America from the Jewish Agency.

“There cannot be a situation
where every American immigrant must pass through a private organization,”
Aparzev said. “They cannot replace the Jewish Agency.”

Neither Nefesh
B’Nefesh nor the Jewish Agency responded to Aparzev’s interview, although one
Jewish Agency official, on condition of anonymity, told the Post that “at the
Jewish Agency we are focused on doing, not on talking.”

One former Jewish
Agency official, incensed by Aparzev’s remarks, told the Post that “Aparzev
doesn’t know what he's talking about.”

“It’s unfortunate that Aparzev
lashes out at the Jewish Agency when he doesn’t actually have a better plan for
doing anything differently,” the former official said. “In parts of the former
Soviet Union you can still find immigrants by handing out pamphlets, sure. But
in America? Forget about it. America is three-quarters of the entire
Diaspora, and nobody there is going to respond to some pamphlet of some shaliach
[emissary]. I think Apartsev needs to spend a week on a Masa program before
making any more pronouncements.”